Draft News

The New Orleans Saints have few picks to work with in the 2019 NFL Draft, but they made the most of them in a recent mock draft. Trevor Sikkema of The Draft Network charted all seven rounds, suggesting players to fit each of the Saints’ selections. Here’s who he picked up for the black and gold:

The NFL Combine list was released on Thursday. Of the 338 prospects invited to the combine, 14 have ties to the state of Louisiana. The combine will be held Feb. 26 - March 4 in Indianapolis.

Below is the list of the players with Louisiana ties who have been invited. (High schools are listed for those who played high school ball in Louisiana.) Based on where they played in high school, Louisiana ranked sixth behind Florida, Texas, Georgia, California and Ohio in number of players invited to this year's combine.

With the 2018 season over, it is time to start looking into what the New Orleans Saints need to upgrade their football team in 2019.

Who knows what happens with free agents like halfback Mark Ingram, back-up quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, defensive tackle Tyeler Davison, nickel-cornerback P.J. Williams and defensive end Alex Okafor, but on the surface, the biggest areas to upgrade would be at tight end, wide receiver, cornerback and safety.

But I believe the biggest spot to spend money will be at defensive tackle.

In the Mickey Loomis/Sean Payton era in New Orleans, the team has tried to address obvious needs in veteran free agency and that gives them some room to go after the top player on the board come draft days in April. ...

The New Orleans Saints traded their first round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft to move up last season and bag pass rusher Marcus Davenport. Now there’s plenty of hand-wringing at the thought of New Orleans waiting until pick No. 62 to make their first selection. But here’s some good news: the team’s biggest position of need, bar none, is at tight end. And the Saints will not need a first round pick to pick up a great prospect.

In 2018, 16 different tight ends recorded 39 receptions — the Saints leader, Ben Watson, posted just 35 catches. When you look at how each of those 16 different tight ends was acquired by their team, you’ll see that few of them were highly-touted draft picks.

Only three players were selected in the first round of their respective draft classes: Eric Ebron (now with his second team), Evan Engram, and David Njoku. Just four more were picked up before the slot where New Orleans will make their first pick, and they include studs like Zach Ertz, Rob Gronkowski, Kyle Rudolph, and Vance Mcdonald (also with his second team). The best tight end in football, Travis Kelce, was picked at 63. ...

It was one of the biggest priorities last offseason, but Cameron Meredith battled a knee injury that eventually cut his season short, and Tre’Quan Smith flashed talent but was inconsistent. It is possible the Saints already have the players in the fold for a vastly improved group of wide receivers next season if everything goes right, but it should not be taken for granted, which is why adding more targets is the Saints' biggest responsibility this offseason.

Having Michael Thomas account for nearly 33 percent of the completed passes would be fine if the next wide receiver on the list caught more than seven percent of the completed passes. Thomas should continue to be targeted somewhere close to 150 times per season. The offense needs to find someone who is worth more than 45.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the season was hiding this flaw for so long. Everyone knew the offense was devoid of weapons, and then the team added Dez Bryant and then Brandon Marshall. It made sense. The target distribution showed a huge flaw within the offense, but it was hard to get too worked up about anything when the team made scoring 40 points look easy...